Goals:

• Complete all scheduled runs
• Continue achilles recovery
• Take adequate time for rest

Schedule:

• Monday – Rest
• Tuesday – 7 @ 9:41
• Wednesday – 3 @ 8:53
• Thursday – 7 with strides @ 9:49
• Friday – Rest
• Saturday – 8 @ 9:03
• Sunday – 11 @ 8:56

Recap:

I know the heat is making a huge dent in my performance because I’m significantly faster when I run in the mornings instead of the evenings. For reference, I ran that 11 miler at the same pace as my half marathon in April, but my heart rate was 10 beats per minute slower and the temperature was about 40º higher.

I only have a couple of weeks left in the base-building plan, and seem to have managed not to get slower, which is what some people fear when they run base-building plans. Generally there’s not a ton of speed work in base plans, but I think the (safe) increase in volume and consistency of training has counteracted that.

Looking Forward:

I finished off my shoes this week, so next week starts with a new pair. Now I have to come up with a new name for them on Strava, too! It doesn’t help that they’re the same model and color as the ones they’re replacing. I’m almost hoping I can run through these all by the end of the year. I’m so tired of purple shoes!

I’m headed up to 39 mpw next week. Pfitz thankfully added the three miles on to the weekday runs and isn’t jacking the weekend mileage up again until the week after that, because these nineteen mile weekends are rather trying. I do need to decide if I want to go all the way up to 45 miles a week or if I want to leave off at 42 and take a really down week between the end of base building and the beginning of the 12/47 half plan. The first week of the plan is 31 miles, so I’d still be dropping a lot of mileage off, but a fifteen mile week sounds pretty good right now. I’d really like to start training with fresher legs, too. I’ll make that decision soon, but in the interest of staying injury-free, I’m leaning toward taking the fifteen mile week and keeping my cardio up with biking.